Ripped jeans: Appropriate for school?

Jeans with holes in them are all the rage. Everyone from Jessica Alba to J. Lo has been spotted sporting a pair. But should teenagers be allowed to wear the grunge look to school?

An East Coast high school is saying ripped jeans are inappropriate. Students are outraged.

Students at a high school in Pennsylvania are up in arms over a new dress code rule saying that clothing with holes or tears isn’t proper attire for school.

This means students who spent their pretty pennies on designer ripped jeans for back-to-school are out of luck.

School officials are strictly enforcing the rule, even with the smallest hole, because students abused their clothing privileges last year by ripping large holes in their pants and exposing their genitals.

Clearfield High School sophomore Sara Stetler thinks this is ridiculous. She says 80 percent of her jeans have holes in them and that it’s difficult to find cute jeans in stores without holes. She’s hoping the district will revert to last year’s dress code that allowed students to wear jeans with holes below the knees. Under the new code, only holey jeans with patches underneath are acceptable.

Parent Deborah Kirsch of Clearfield is taking the students’ side. “It’s the only way they come,” Kirsch told the Gant Daily, regarding pre-torn jeans sold in stories. “There’s not too much that you can do about it.”

Many students are making the point that most holey jeans are a lot less revealing than other promiscuous clothing items some kids wear around school.

“No offense to the cheerleaders, but their skirts are very short, and their whole, you know, stuff hangs out,” student Haylee Lawhead, told WTAJ-TV. “And it’s not fair that they can show all their legs, or we can show our legs with shorts, but we can’t have little holes.”

In protest, 20 students stormed out of class earlier this month. Students and parents also expressed their disgust with the rule at a board meeting.

Over at the parenting blog Babble a writer is taking the side of the school administrators. “Here’s the thing, kids,” writes Carolyn Castiglia. “Unless you grow up to be Lady Gaga, there’s a very strong likelihood that you’ll end up working someplace that enforces some type of dress code, be it on Wall Street or at McDonald’s. One of the reasons so many young Americans have so much trouble in their 20′s figuring out how to cope with life as an adult (and I include my 20-something self in this tirade) is because young people in this country aren’t really asked to behave like civilized human beings.”